The Chinese, it says, claim to
date back their acquaintance with chess to a very remote period;
so with the best testimonies of that country, which acknowledge its
receipt from India in the sixth century the writer seems to
have been quite unacquainted. Nothing occurs in the article as
to the transit of chess from India into Persia, next to Arabia and
Greece, and by the Saracens into Spain; neither does a line
appear as to Egyptian probabilities, or the nature of the game
inscribed on edifices in that country. Though abounding in
traditional names of Trojan heroes, and others equally mythical
as regards chess, the more genuine ones of Chosroes of Persia,
Harun, Mamun and Mutasem of Bagdad, Walid of Cordova,
the Carlovingian Charlemagne of France, Canute the Dane,
William of Normandy the English kings are entirely absent, nor
is there a word concerning Roman games or the edict which
refers to them in which Chess and Draughts (both mentioned)
were specially protected and exempted from the interdiction
against other games; which has escaped all writers, and would
certainly, if known about, have been deemed of some significance.
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